Resolution of the National Committee, CPUSA, adopted November 15, 2009

As the historic fight for health care reform passes to the Senate next week, and then to conference committee before final vote, a continued and expanded push is needed to prevent blockage of this key legislation, to insure a strong public option with no taxation of health benefits, inclusion of immigrants, and to eliminate measures that restrict coverage for women's reproductive rights. Messages to the Senate are needed in favor of health care reform that is affordable, accessible, portable and universal.

The outcome of the monumental battle for health care reform will affect every other issue on the labor and people's agenda. As the extreme right-wing teamed up with the medical industrial complex to stop passage at all costs, they drew a line in the sand, threatening to bring down the Obama Administration on the issue of health care.

To date, a huge mobilization has taken hold with labor at the center, involving African American, Latino, women, senior and youth organizations, small business, the faith community and many others, complimenting the role of the Progressive, Black, Hispanic and Asian Pacific Congressional Caucuses working together.

The key to passage of positive health reform is phone calls, letters, rallies and public expressions of support to every member of the US Senate. Several members of the House who were undecided stated publicly that they voted in favor because of the huge volume of calls and messages from constituents.

The union workplace sticker and call-in day, giant rallies in California, sit-ins and vigils in Connecticut, and protests at insurance companies in Chicago are great examples of the creativity that this movement has sparked. The pressure cannot be let up if health care with a public option is to become law.

Passage will give millions of people coverage they do not have, and will save countless lives. But passage will not be an end. It will create forward motion toward the single-payer national health service our country needs. It will provide new experience in organizing and mobilizing at the grass roots.

It will open the door to the fight for the right to form a union and many other key battles that lie ahead coming into the 2010 elections.